


The Space In Between

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Family Dynamics, Fear of Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Wings, or something like that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28478982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Techno didn't think of himself as a saint, but he's pretty sure the powers above took it too far by dropping an entire building on him. With Tommy, no less.Or, the one where Technoblade never really dies, Wilbur has a broken moral compass, Tommy questions his choices so far, and Phil realizes there was never a How-To-Life manual, winged edition.(Written for the L30 Secret-Santa-Turned-New-Year's Exchange)
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: New Year First Gift!





	The Space In Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IsleFlightlessBirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsleFlightlessBirds/gifts).



**I**

The new museum wasn’t anything special, seemingly typical of every other one Techno had ever been to.

Most of the main artifacts always ended up being added to the city museum, probably because they had enough of a superiority complex to rival his own. The central city museum, like the upcoming one in its pictures, flaunted the same palette of muted browns, greys and whites, with a dash of something else darker. The exhibits themselves were boring, undeserving of their individual stands.

Nevertheless, while Techno knew what to expect, the ‘Museum of the Future’ had only one redeeming quality, and that happened to be the ironic existence of what he knew to be the ‘History of Warfare’ section. He’d been eyeing that page of the pamphlet ever since the announcement of its construction, and it had been subsequently pinned at the edge of its life onto the little board above his desk. Amongst the red strings and useless college flyers, it almost seemed at home.

The opening also happened to be that Friday night, something that Phil seemed to hear and promptly forget about whenever he was told. Techno figured it wouldn’t change, not with Tommy hollering about a concert on the same day. So the opening day came and went, all while he sipped on a particularly sweet slushy as his younger brother showed off a signed t-shirt.

Of course, he’d ended up making some kind of quip about the age gap and gotten himself a customary angry shout from the kid. Techno was more surprised about having been heard over all the noise in the venue.

Wilbur was there too. Wilbur had never been home for longer than the amount of time it took for Techno to wake up and become fully functioning. Quite the first, despite the telltale whiffs of alcohol that were lost in between the screaming crowd of feathers and hands. He otherwise seemed entirely normal.   
  


Well. Wearing a mask did end up making you want to glue it to your face occasionally. 

Although, he notes with self-proclaimed disinterest, even Wilbur got his way in the end. Phil let him off the hook with less than an enraged reprimand, because he never could see the worst in the second oldest. The same one who kept most of them up at night with his exploits, and yet, Phil would go to the moon and back without a spaceship for him.

However, a single museum outing seemed to go beyond all kinds of possibilities.

It’s what keeps him up for about an hour that night, gaze shifting between his class notes and that pamphlet. It wasn’t as if they would end up going there together.

Techno knows that Wilbur sneaks out through the window whenever he deems it fit. He also knows that Phil wakes up later than usual on Sundays, followed by a groggy, disoriented Tommy, who would instantly call Tubbo over for the day.

So after a sleepless night of nothing but traded shouts between Phil and Wilbur downstairs, Techno flips over the window latch and places his feet down on the sill, wings tucked back and executes what he would call a perfect barrel roll onto the grass. His wings remain folded against his back as he jogs off into the distance, pulling his hood up. The chill was bearable enough for five in the morning, and the museum was only an hour’s walk away, with the added total of three bus rides and a mile.

It was one of those times when he wished that wings didn't take as long as they did to grow and become functional, but he supposes it was one of the appeals of growing up. There's a brief sense of satisfaction at the thought of being only a year away from being able to take to the skies, of flying to a destination. The possibilities seemed almost endless. It was a typical development, but it makes Techno feel slightly better about himself. 

What he doesn’t end up accounting for is Tommy pushing open his bedroom door a few seconds later, eyes rimmed red and a grudging sort-of worried, as if about to explain why he was there.

Instead, he’s met with cool drafts of air from the open window, curtains billowing out in the general direction of an obviously empty bed. A stray feather swayed as it fell on the ground.

_Always had to be a Sunday._

**II**

The sun is definitely up by the time Techno ambles up to the place, watching other people become entranced by the grandeur of the front gate. He ends up shuffling around crowds of people attempting to take pictures around the central fountain, walking into a tree and being the first of everyone there to actually enter.

Well. That would have been the truth, until his stomach growled with the resolve of a hungry dog. He was used to ignoring that sort of thing, but stepped back anyway.

Techno spent a lot of time studying the area again, before his eyes zeroed onto a confectionary down the road. Not optimal, but it would do for now. He couldn’t exactly appreciate weapons of historical significance while suffering from dehydration and hunger. That was strictly reserved for the orphans.

The bell above the door rings out as he steps inside, catching the attention of the man behind the counter. He looks as tired as Techno would have felt a few hours ago, and while that probably wasn’t a good thing, he had felt a lot better after a good look at the museum. He ends up leaving behind a fat tip after grabbing his cheese sandwich and packet of potato chips, nodding at the half smile he got from the man.

The shop was empty, and he sat as far as he could from the window. The lights above his head seemed to get brighter the longer he stared at them. The sandwich had hit the spot however, and he eagerly downed about half his water bottle.

He wonders about what Phil must have made for breakfast, before focusing on his chips, pushing aside the empty plastic casing that previously held his sandwich. Probably pancakes.

The bell above the door rings again. Techno looks up with the barest sliver of interest.

It’s the next thing he sees that made him wonder if the mere thought of his family had been what conjured the possibility.

A familiar blond thirteen year-old stumbles through the doorway, panting like he’d been made to run over ten miles continuously. He collapses onto the ground, wings wilting back with the force of his coughing fit. However, the quick rate at which these events occurred didn’t stop Techno from noticing the red and white t-shirt signed from the day before and making the connection.

“Tommy, what the _hell_ are you doin’ here?”

His voice is leveled out and loud enough to have the boy raise his head, grinning like he’d won the latest jackpot.

“I,” and a huge gulp of air later, “followed you. All the way, Technoblade. All the way.”

It would have been concerning how Tommy had effectively tracked all his bus routes and passed in undetected, but Techno stays silent. He finds himself standing up with his water bottle and walking around the kid’s otherwise slumped figure through the exit. A hand nearly trips him over, and he looks down at the tiled floor to see Tommy’s resolute glare on him again.

“You’re not gonna leave me here,” he says, affronted. “After all that I’ve been through.”

“That was entirely your fault,” Techno puts forward, but he doesn’t reach for the door again. “What are you doin’ here?”

The second time did the trick, and Tommy seems pleased to be asked that question again. “I told you, big man. I followed you here. Now,” and he bounces back up on his feet, brushing all the phantom dust off his jeans. “Where are we going?”

Techno allows the boy to continue chattering as they get out of the shop, all while the man at the counter looks on in a vaguely concerned manner. Then he starts walking away briskly enough that it catches Tommy’s attention, who makes an offended noise and sprints after him.

“You better have a _real_ good fucking excuse for when we get back big bro, because I’m blaming this on-“ he pauses, looking around the nearest familiar setting with varying degrees of realization. “This is the bus stop.”

“Good observation,” Techno drawls out, pushing him towards the bench. “Now you’re gonna wait here for the bus to come by in exactly,” he looks up at the digital display, as Tommy’s face crosses expressions of confusion, more confusion and then annoyance. “Five minutes. Can you manage five minutes, Tommy?”

“We came all this way to go back home?”

“No, you came all this way to go back home,” Techno corrects, and he waves at the dumbfounded teen. “Hope you have enough for the fare back. Bye Tommy.”

“Wh- no!” He scrambles to his feet, scowling. “You can’t just- I’m not going home, Technoblade.”

He’s ignored at a total of a three meters distance, before he catches up to the pink-haired man again. “If you send me home, I’ll tell Phil you left.” He grins triumphantly, as if having won.

Techno stopped dead in his tracks, causing Tommy to run into his back and let out a pained hiss. “That would be very annoying,” he agrees grimly, and continues walking.

Tommy’s jubilant smile turns over into a determined frown as he runs in front of him again, waving his hands around like an estranged salesperson. “Come on, please! I want to know where the Blade goes in his free time.”

“I’m always at home, Tommy.”

“Yeah, because you have no friends, bitch.” Tommy frowns, as if there was possibly something wrong with that fact. “Whatever. Today’s the big day for both of us. Me finding out where you go, and you getting to show me.”

“Yeah, which is why you should be gettin’ home.”

“No, there’s nothing there for me. I saw the batter in the fridge last night. Phil made pancakes,” and he mimes throwing up. He couldn’t quite be blamed for that. “I thought that was why you left so early.”

Techno sighs. He wonders what it looked like from afar, an annoying child trying to get the attention of a possible elf reincarnation, before deciding he didn’t want to. He stares at Tommy again, briefly considering if there was a child’s playroom within the museum. Even a guillotine would suffice.

He thinks about sending Tommy back on the bus instead, and considers that maybe the kid didn’t know the way back. He imagines Phil’s disappointed stare looking down at him for even considering leaving Tommy on his own, and berates his mind for the low-hanging emotional blackmail.

Then he gestures towards where he was going. “C’mon.”

Tommy grins, a little too enthusiastically, and they set off towards the actual museum.

_This was going to go splendidly,_ Techno thinks to himself, a little too sarcastically, and they get past the entrance this time.

**III**

“Hey, pass me the candy from that bowl.”

Techno ignores him, as per usual. “History of Warfare is down the hall?”

“Yes,” says the lady behind the ticket booth, far too brightly to be genuine. “Just take the last right, and the left after that, and it should be easy enough to find. The one with the swords and-“

“Yes, thank you,” Techno mutters, slightly uncomfortable with the existence of the crowd of people lining up behind him and flying above to the Adult's-Only counter. He does end up grabbing a few wrapped pieces of candy while the kid wasn’t looking and stuffs them into his pocket. They end up having to pass through the crowd anyway, the line dividers doing their jobs far too well.

Tommy, on the other hand, seemed to be equally intrigued by the sound of swords and pissed off at the betrayal. What betrayal that was, Techno didn’t really know. He’d tuned out that bit.

Tommy follows him through the crowd, eyes following his gaze. “You’re such an old man, Technoblade. A _museum_?”

“You didn’t have to come, in that case.”

Tommy falls strangely silent at that, but Techno doesn’t have time to think much of it. They turn around the first left, and even Tommy stares around the room in awe.

Magnificent arches line the walls, and the ceiling rises high to frame a chandelier, glinting in the lights that shine on it from above and within. Rather than the same colors, it sported a lively brown and some black highlights, giving the room an almost regal atmosphere. Techno’s gaze, however, hadn’t shifted from the axe mounted on the wall, still so radiant despite all the corrode.

A whistle came from beside him, alerting him to the other’s presence almost instantly. “They’ve got swords,” Tommy points out frivolously. Then a thought seemed to occur to him, just like all the other terrible jokes he had attempted to make. “Did you come all this way just to see some swords?”

“Maybe.”

Tommy starts to laugh, before something else catches his eye.

“Is that a fucking potato?”

Techno watches the kid bound towards it, the display mounted against the wall between another of a similar caliber. The stupid vegetable in the case. It’s an ordinary potato, of course. He would know.

His grin slowly erodes, just as he reads the text engraved into the bronze plaque underneath. “‘ _The Potato War - The First Ever Potato From Technoblade’s Own Farm._ ’” He turns to face Techno, expression surprisingly unreadable. “Holy shit, you have your own exhibit!”

“It’s what you like to...” Techno’s words each came out slower and quieter than the last, straining for the sound he had heard. The crumble. The screech of metal.

Tommy looks around, seeing no one but themselves in the room. He looks up as well, brow furrowing.

He had no time to react as Techno lunged at his figure, tackling him to the ground against the wall. He screamed as they made impact, Techno wrapping his arms around Tommy’s figure and stilling considerably. He seemed to go limp on him, head slacking on top of his own. His wings screeched in protest, flattening against the ground as Techno’s own multi-feathered ones flared up around them.

Then something loud sounded out in the distance, and the building came down.

**IV**

Phil sighs as he keeps the pan down and rubs his eyes. Wilbur is sitting at the kitchen table, watching him with a half-lidded, dangerously bored gaze. The way he supported the right temple of his head on his hand made it clear he had a hangover, but he didn’t wince or move. There's a rare sort of serenity in the room, fragile and ready to implode from within. The clock on the wall ticks in the distance. 

“What’s for breakfast?” Wilbur asks, suddenly entranced by the sight of the floor tiles beneath their feet. A bird chirps outside the window, and he turns only to catch the sight of a fluttering pair of wings, drawing farther away.

He doesn’t reply however, watching his second-youngest fumble for something else to look at, anything other than Phil’s eyes. Then he sighs again.

“Why are you asking? You’re never at home for this sort of thing anyway.”

“I,” Wilbur purses his lips, contemplative. His glazed eyes give away enough “I’m sorry.”

Phil laughs. “No. No, you’re not.”

He heads over to draw the curtains shut, but Wilbur doesn’t move an inch.

“You know,” Phil says, as he opens the fridge to get out the batter, “if you were really sorry, you’d look me in the face and say it. The only thing you’re afraid of now is being caught again. You’re going to find a better way to hide it, pile more lies onto it, probably even get away with it. But the only person you’re harming in the end is yourself.” Alcohol's chemical composition was detrimental to wing development, which is why it was usually off-limits until the person turned twenty-one. There was already a small pile's worth of feathers strewn across the floor, despite the way Wilbur kept shoving them out of view with his foot. 

“Maybe that’s all I fucking want,” he mutters while doing just that. It's an almost sad sight.

Phil turns around. “I don’t know about that being all you want. All I know is that I’m not going to enable one of my sons in becoming a social recluse with about ten different addictions.”

“You’re not my father,” Wilbur snaps back, and makes eye-contact for the first time. His eyes are rimmed red and utterly bloodshot, wildly defensive.

It goes quiet again. The clock continues its droning ticks. 

“Well,” he says, ignoring the persistent sting at that statement, “that’s what the papers are for.”

Wilbur looks away.

The rest of the morning sneaks around them quietly, and soon enough, the brunette is slumped over the table beside his empty plate, snoring. Phil leaves him there, carefully stepping around his drooped wings as he heads to and switches on the TV for the news. He doesn’t quite know how to deal with that. Something occurs to him at that moment, and he starts to fly upstairs instead, deciding it was about time the other two woke up.

The house is strangely quiet, despite the existence of two more people, and after stopping at the sink down the hallway to wash his hands, notices the pronounced black bags under his own eyes. The night's argument trickles back to him in steady waves; Wilbur's enraged expression, the broken glass, words that had been said, words that had been left unsaid, his own vision turning red at the edges, and stops in his tracks. His own sleepless night suddenly seemed small in comparison. He could only hope Tommy and Techno had slept through it all, but that would be wishful thinking.

He stares at their doors, before heading back downstairs. They probably needed the rest. 

Phil seats himself on the couch and grabs the remote, flipping between channels with no particular compulsion. He stops at the sight of a collapsed structure, and turns up the volume slightly to listen. After a wary glance at Wilbur, he turns it up a bit more.

“- _yes, and sources confirm that there were more than a thousand people within the museum before it fell. The excavation crews are working on finding survivors within the rubble, but it’s hard to say how many survived._ ”

Wilbur seemed to stir at that. He yawns and turns towards the screen. “Isn’t that- isn’t that the new one that had opened last week?”

Phil squints at it, before realizing that it was, in fact, the one that had opened last week. “Yes. More than a thousand people... Jesus.”

They watch it for a while before Phil speaks up again. “I was going to take all of us there next week. Techno had really wanted to go.”

“Techno wanted to go to a museum?” Wilbur doesn’t sound very interested in the conversation, but seemed to be holding it up for the sake of normalcy. He did sound faintly surprised, however, along with exhausted, for whatever reason. Phil decides to let him.

“Something about warfare. Ah, well,” and the news switches over to something about a fire in the mall down the road. “Looks like that won’t be happening. Techno won’t be happy to hear about that.” The smoke rising from the shattered windows was an alarming sight in itself. “Too many accidents today.”

Wilbur scoffs.

And that was the end of it.

Or, it would have been the end of it, until Wilbur wandered upstairs. The door nearest to the staircase led to Tommy’s room, followed by his own, Techno’s and then Phil’s at the end. They all kept their doors closed at night, excluding Phil, who always kept his door open in the event that any of them wandered in too late.

Phil hears his footsteps above, uncoordinated and random, right before they pause a bit too early. He turns back to the screen, patting his pockets for his phone. There's a distant ping sound, and he spots the offending device on the kitchen counter top.

He sighs again, just as his phone vibrates with the excuse of an incoming call.

‘Scott’, it read, and he doesn’t think twice before answering.

“ _Good morning_ ,” Scott says cheerfully. “ _Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time_.”

Phil looks at the spot where Wilbur had been sitting a while ago, and shakes his head, before realizing that the man couldn't see that. “No, all good. Is this about the management team being dickheads again?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” he replies, chuckling. “ _We all saw that one coming. Do you mind coming into work today? There’s a file of the second floor build plans...”_

Phil doesn’t think much about leaving the house, right after staring at Wilbur’s closed door for a small amount of time. The call ends, and he raises a fist to the door, hesitant.

Then he knocks. “Wil, make sure to wake up your brothers before I get back.” A pause. “Breakfast is in the box near the fridge. Warm it up for them.”

There’s no response, but as he turns to leave, Wilbur pops his head through the door. “Okay,” he says. The door slams shut, and he heads to the door, after examining his own wings in the mirror above the sink at the end of the hallway. That was perhaps the best he would get from Wilbur for a long time. 

They don’t mention how it was the weekend. Phil usually wasn’t home a lot either way. Perks of being the only earning member, he supposes.

He grabs his keys and flies out without a second glance.

**Author's Note:**

> One down, three to go. Probably.
> 
> So, I'll be updating this one everyday at the same time, or every alternate day, depending on how much time I get to format the chapter and post it. Most of it has already been written, so you wont be left hangin for too long. 
> 
> To Isle: yo, it's your Secret Santa. Did the best I could with your prompt. Hope this is to your liking. Never written angst before, and yeah, this couldve been absolute dogshit lol. But you made it to the end, so I'm assumin thats a good thing. Happy New Year, and have a good one bud.


End file.
